<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>volatile on the system by Ponderosa (ponderosa121)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536579">volatile on the system</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa121/pseuds/Ponderosa'>Ponderosa (ponderosa121)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha Dani Powell, Alpha Gil Arroyo, Alpha JT Tarmel, Anal Sex, Bodily Fluids, Canon Character of Color, Double Penetration in Two Holes, F/M, Intersex, Knotting, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Malcolm Bright, Omega Verse, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Possessive Behavior, Scent Marking, Trapped In Elevator, Vaginal Fisting, Vaginal Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:40:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,518</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536579</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa121/pseuds/Ponderosa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You gonna be okay, Bright?” Dani asks. “I didn’t know you were claustrophobic.”</p><p>He closes his eyes and swallows. “I’ll be fine. Luckily, I trust you all.” If it’d been a different group of alphas, he might be worried. Not for himself, but for them. </p><p>[unplanned heats + trapped in an elevator = team/malcolm with a gil/malcolm endgame]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gil Arroyo/Malcolm Bright, Gil Arroyo/Malcolm Bright/JT Tarmel, Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright/JT Tarmel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>160</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>volatile on the system</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to Kate for beta'ing!</p><p>Standard dubious consent for an omegaverse heat, but everyone is into it and I permanently headcanon JT's wife Tally as being down with him railing Malcolm, so no implied infidelity either.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once-weekly injections are supposed to provide a more stable dosage than a topical suppressant—not to mention be more discreet and make it so he doesn’t need to scent mask the gel—but Malcolm knew there’d be a risk. There always is when changing up his meds.</p><p>They’re in the middle of a crime scene when he feels a tell-tale trickle that warns he’s roughly three hours away from starting an unplanned heat.</p><p>He pulls out his phone, pretending to get a call. “Sorry, excuse me for a minute,” he says, and ducks out onto the balcony of the apartment to silently freak out.</p><p>He needs to manufacture an excuse and leave immediately. It’s no secret he’s an omega, but the idea of the team being able to scent him—<em>Gil being able to scent him</em>—is absolutely mortifying. He texts Ainsley and pleads with her to cover for him in case he needs it.</p><p>“Family emergency,” he says, coming back in and waggling his phone. “You have my initial profile. Just text me anything else important.”</p><p>“Kid, is everything all right?”</p><p>“Oh, you know how it is. Ainsley inherited the drama gene from my mother,” he says, making a beeline for the exit.</p><p>Already his senses are picking up because he catches JT’s mumbled, “You know he’s lying, right?” followed by Gil’s long-suffering sigh before he’s dashing out and frantically hitting the call button on the elevator. The apartment building is a newly converted warehouse, and they’ve kept the old service elevators for the aesthetic, not the efficiency. It clanks its way back up the shaft at a snail’s pace.</p><p>“Where you headed, Bright?” Dani says, approaching with that careful predatory walk that always gets Malcolm’s skin prickling in a good way. She’s the sort of alpha to circle around the object of her attention, always looking for weaknesses to exploit—or in his case, to safeguard. “You need a lift?”</p><p>He <em>really</em> should’ve taken the stairs.</p><p>“No, but thank you. The car service is already on its way.”</p><p>It’s been a few years since he’s had to deal with an unplanned heat, and being around this many alphas who he’d love to have knot him might mean his three hour estimate was a bit generous. He fights the instinct to tip his head and expose his throat.</p><p>“I promise I’ll be back as soon as I’m able,” Malcolm says. He taps the button again even though he knows it’s a placebo and he can hear the elevator is still a couple floors below. “I’m sorry about this. Make sure Gil knows that, won’t you?”</p><p>“Make sure Gil knows what?” Gil says, strolling into the hall with JT at his side.</p><p>Malcolm doesn’t have time to regret not taking the stairs again because he’s mesmerized more than usual by Gil’s confident stride—the natural power and strength he exudes with each step that makes even an alpha like JT willing to defer to his leadership. “What kind of family emergency has got you all twisted, kid?” Gil asks, hand landing to clasp at Malcolm’s neck. “Is everything all right?”</p><p>His legs go weak, but he catches himself before his knees actually sag. “Everything’s fine,” he says, lying through his teeth. It takes an immense amount of willpower and years of training to override the urge to press deeper into that touch. “Boyfriend troubles, you know how it is. Ainsley just needs some advice from an omega who isn’t going to say whatever she wants to hear.”</p><p>The elevator grinds to a halt with an awful screech and Dani hauls open the gate.</p><p>Gil steers Malcolm inside, his hand staying clasped firmly to Malcolm’s neck as if he’s about to try and dodge past him to make a run for it. Which, when during the descent the entire car jolts and stops between floors, Malcolm wonders might have been the smarter move. </p><p>He holds his breath, hoping that it’s only a minor hiccup, but when Dani hits the buttons by the door and the lights in the panel flicker before going dark, he starts to worry. The space is big enough that it doesn’t feel crowded, thankfully. It’s still closer quarters than he’s comfortable with considering the warmth pooling between his legs, but he doesn’t feel trapped as he might if he’d been surrounded by strangers.</p><p>JT pulls out his phone and calls the uni who had secured the scene. Malcolm should be able to pick up the other end of the conversation, but Gil’s thumb rubbing in small circles at the nape of his neck turns everything to pleasant static. On a good day Gil touching him is enough to make him want to sink to the ground and present himself for rutting, on a day like today…. Malcolm clenches his fist and stares at a set of initials graffitied on the slats of the gate; studying the blocky letters slightly above his eyeline prevents his gaze from slipping to the floor.</p><p>After a brief conversation, JT informs them the uni’s going to get the property manager back on the line. “Won’t be long,” he adds, looking at Malcolm as he says it. As if Malcolm needs to be <em>comforted</em>.</p><p>“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it,” Gil says. His hand slips from Malcolm’s nape to the slope of his shoulder to give him an encouraging little shake.</p><p>It would’ve been an improvement if not for the fact that he’d remained tense at the touch and could scent Gil’s worry. And if Gil hadn’t interpreted the tension as triggered by the small space and responded by easing behind him to give him a clear view of the door and the sliver of open hallway visible at the top of the gate.</p><p>Both of Gil’s hands now rest firmly—<em>possessively</em>—on his shoulders, and he can feel the warmth of Gil’s body radiating into the space behind him as if seeking to drive up his own temperature. Mere inches separate their bodies, and he’s been placed truly in the middle of all of them. JT is a wall at his left and Dani is tucked into the corner at his three o’clock watching him with narrowed eyes.</p><p>“How long, exactly?” he asks, voice rising with a quaver.</p><p>JT shrugs. “They didn’t say.”</p><p>Malcolm lasts roughly five minutes before he needs to strip off his jacket and loosen his tie. It’s an excuse at least to shake off Gil’s hands, and he pivots to back himself up against the gate. The air slipping in at the top of the car feels deliciously cool. He folds his hands in front of himself, letting his jacket hang there and obscure any trembling in his fingers or any visible signs of arousal.</p><p>“You gonna be okay, Bright?” Dani asks. “I didn’t know you were claustrophobic.”</p><p>He closes his eyes and swallows. “I’ll be fine. Luckily, I trust you all.” If it’d been a different group of alphas, he might be worried. Not for himself, but for them. </p><p>Long minutes pass. He looks up when JT’s phone rings, ears pricked to listen intently to what news the faint voice on the other end relays. His hand shakes as he hears the phrase “hold tight for a couple hours” and tries to keep a neutral face when JT says, “Settle in guys, it’s gonna be a while.”</p><p>“How long is a while?” Dani asks.</p><p>“Best case: a half hour. Worst case: a couple.”</p><p>“Great,” Gil says. He shrugs out of his coat and tosses it down in the empty corner at Malcolm’s right, his sportcoat swiftly joining it. He rolls his sleeves to his elbow and folds his arms over his chest as he leans his back against the rear wall to wait.</p><p>Malcolm doesn’t look at the pile. The <em>nest.</em> </p><p>He can taste Gil’s scent rising up from the wool, that musk with its sweetness like cloves that always makes his mouth water. If only he could strip down to nothing and lay amongst it, let that scent cling to his skin and fill his pores. It’d saturate him like it did the leather of the Le Mans, leave him marked wherever he went with the stamp of a powerful alpha.</p><p>“Bright?”</p><p>He blinks.</p><p>They’re staring. All of them.</p><p>“Are you…?” Dani has a hand extending towards him. As he swivels his head to look at her, she retracts her arm.</p><p>His hands are no longer clasped together. His traitorous right has stripped his tie off entirely and has opened half the buttons of his shirt. He’s panting lightly, and he can feel the warmth in his face and in his groin.</p><p>“I, uh. I’m on new meds. I might be going into heat,” he says, then glances up and over. It’s not the time to minimize. “No, not might. I <em>am</em> going into heat.”</p><p>“Shit,” she says.</p><p>“Call for a bus and get a fire crew in here to see if we can safely cut or pry a hole in the top of this thing,” Gil says, snapping his fingers in front of JT’s face.</p><p>“Yeah, of course. I’m on it.”</p><p>Not needing to hide his physical responses any longer, Malcolm’s mouth drops all the way open. He takes in as much air as he can on every short breath. Gil’s gaze is locked on him, not predatory but with that alpha-knows-best protectiveness that at any other time would make his heart swell. Now it makes him gnash his teeth while at the same time ache to spread his legs.</p><p>“Powell,” Gil says, “do you have any menthol on you?” </p><p>“Um. Yeah. Yeah, I do.” She fishes the tiny screw-top tin out of her back pocket and holds it out balanced on her palm. With such a sensitive nose, she has to use it more often than the others.</p><p>“Don’t open it yet. How long do we have, Bright?” Gil asks. “How long until your heat.”</p><p>“I don’t know. It’s hitting a lot faster than I anticipated.” He presses his thighs together. He’s tingling but not quite dripping. Not yet. “Maybe forty minutes?”</p><p>“Okay, good. That’s good,” Gil says. He starts to unholster his weapon, still fixed on Malcolm as he passes the gun over to Dani. He’s ensuring that all of them feel like he’s made a claim, Malcolm realizes. “JT give your service weapon to Powell. Powell, remove the magazines, push them out the gate.”</p><p>“You think we’re gonna fight? Over him?” Dani asks, even as she’s complying with Gil’s orders. The magazines rattle as they tumble down the elevator shaft.</p><p>“No, but our boy here might.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t,” Malcolm says. His teeth catch on his lip. He’s neutered more than one alpha in his time, but he wouldn’t do it to any of them.</p><p>“You don’t know that for sure.”</p><p>He does though. He knows it in his core. He <em>wants</em> them to mount him. All of them. One after the other. Each of the steps Gil outlines are smart ones, and they’re all the things Malcolm himself would do if their situation were reversed, but the only thing he can think right now is that the simplest solution would be for them to just give in.</p><p>He’s desirable, he’s at peak breeding age, and he’s getting <em>wet</em>.</p><p>“Okay, bad news. More like twenty minutes maybe,” he admits, glancing down at his crotch. He doesn’t feel tender yet, but the heat there is gathering swiftly, body preparing itself for the wide stretch of a knot. He licks his lips and drops his suit jacket, hooking his fingers into the accordion gate at his back to try and anchor himself when all he wants to do is move himself within Gil’s reach.</p><p>“I don’t register to you as family, do I?” Gil says. He bares his teeth in a grimace when Malcolm shakes his head no. “Damn. If we aren’t able to get you out of here soon enough, is there one of us you’d rather mate with?”</p><p>Malcolm shakes his head again. His fingers tighten around the beveled edges of the brass slats.</p><p>A frustrated snarl moves through Gil’s chest, low like distant thunder. He rips his gaze away and pushes his hands through his hair.  “Kid, I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“Gil, no, don’t be,” Malcolm replies quickly, voice sounding higher and needier already. “Don’t be sorry! It’s not that I don’t want any of you. I— I want all three of you.”</p><p>From the corner of his eye he sees Dani’s eyebrow wing up, and JT shoots her a look with a brow cocked to match. Gil, meanwhile, looks like he’s just been clocked in the head with a baseball bat.</p><p>“You what?”</p><p>“Please don’t make me say it a second time.”</p><p>“Right, well, hopefully it won’t come to that at all, kid,” Gil says, and motions for Dani to pass over the menthol. He swipes some on his upper lip and hands it to JT who hesitates briefly before doing the same.</p><p>“If he’s into it, it might be easier to just rut him,” JT says, tossing the tin back to Dani who catches it easily.</p><p>“And if he ends up pregnant, what then?” Gil asks. “Do <em>you</em> want to tell Jessica Whitly that one of us knocked up her eldest?”</p><p>There aren’t that many omegas who can put a look of fear on the face of someone like JT, but Malcolm’s mother is one of them.</p><p>“Fair point,” JT says. An incoming message brightens his screen as the sound of sirens approach. “Fire and medical are almost here. They want to know what medications you’re on.”</p><p>“Too many,” Malcolm says. “There’s no emergency suppressant available that won’t trigger an adverse reaction with at least one of my meds. Trust me, if there were, I’d be carrying a blocker-pen.” He sighs and lists them off anyway.</p><p>JT messages the team a reply and shoves his phone in his back pocket. He turns to Gil, muscling in close to him and whispering softly enough that Malcolm can’t pick it up. Dani, meanwhile, has been silently studying Malcolm, and his brow furrows as he tries to figure out what she’s thinking. Is she—</p><p>“Bright, I want you first,” she says abruptly. “Is that cool?”</p><p>This time Malcolm’s knees do go weak. His back skids down the gate a few inches and rucks his shirt up. Where does she land on the spectrum for her biotype? Is she a phallotype alpha? Or is the scent he’s picking up the evidence of her own wetness gathering? He nods emphatically, his teeth finding his lip.</p><p>“We should give the fire crew enough time to assess the situation before we start trying to decide...that,” Gil says. His patience is waning too, though. Malcolm can see the tension at Gil’s jaw and he’s planted his feet to avoid pacing back and forth.</p><p>“My sense of smell is better than both of yours,” Dani says. She points a finger at Malcolm. “And he’s ripe. We need to work this out now, or he’s not going to be in any state to say who and when and how. So, me first. I can knot him with my fist and that’ll buy us more time.”</p><p>So probably not a phallotype, Malcolm reasons, which makes her almost as rare as him. Fully intersexed omegas represent roughly one in every thousand births, non-phallotype alphas are about one in every eight hundred. He nibbles at his lip and gently clenches. He’s always wanted to get stroked and fisted by an alpha who knows what it’s like to have a cunt.</p><p>“You first sounds wonderful,” he says. </p><p>She presses her lips together before she clears her throat and says, “Boss?”</p><p>Malcolm looks to Gil, then back to Dani. He lets his gaze drop finally, lashes first, and then his head, tipping it to offer his throat. He tastes the air, and between one moment and the next, the scent of her interest in him rises enough to reach him. Pinpricks of anticipation climb the column of his spine as he inhales the chemical proof that he’s wanted.</p><p>“I’m not watching this,” Gil says, turning away and pinching the bridge of his nose. Malcolm’s lashes flicker, is Gil...<em>jealous</em>?</p><p>“I’ll watch,” JT says, crossing his arms over his chest. “If you don’t mind, partner.”</p><p>Dani breathes out a laugh and eases out of her jacket. “Yeah, big guy. Watch and learn.” She holds her jacket out to Malcolm and he takes it to bury his nose in the butter-soft leather.</p><p>“Bright, how wet are you?”</p><p>“Wet enough,” he says, still greedily breathing in her scent. “Getting wetter.”</p><p>“Yeah, I bet you are,” Dani says. She sidles up to him, her hands landing light at his hips. An electric shock crackles through him. “You must be pretty sensitive by now. Can you smell me?”</p><p>Malcolm moans softly, his fingers tightening in the leather. He can. He can smell her scent all around him, and threaded through it, the sharp edge of her desire. When her thigh nudges between his, he trembles.</p><p>“Open your pants,” Dani tells him. She plucks the jacket from his hands and tosses it in the corner with Gil’s. She strips her shirt off overhead as Malcolm toes off his shoes and fumbles with the catch on his slacks. His fingers turn thick and clumsy as he pinches the zipper, failing him completely when Dani slides her jaw against his neck.</p><p>Of course she’d be the type to give him her scent before any other claim. Her trust issues run almost as deeply as his. She wants to know he belongs to her as much as possible when there’s no bond. It’s probably why she wanted to go first, too.</p><p>The moment his slacks slip down his legs, she’s reaching between them to grip his cock hard. She scrapes her teeth up the muscle cording in his neck and nips at his ear. “<em>Now</em> how wet are you?”</p><p>“Dripping,” he manages to say, his eyes rolling back in his skull as her teeth tug on his ear hard enough to leave it stinging.</p><p>Dani flips him around, slamming his chest against the gate. She hauls his shorts down and he hears JT whisper a low, “Damn,” and a swift intake of breath from Gil.</p><p>Malcolm hooks his fingers in the gate again, stance widening to eagerly push his ass back against her. He grins wildly, glancing back over his shoulder to catch one last look at the hungry void of Dani’s pupils before they narrow into pinpricks. His body temperature hasn’t peaked, isn’t pushing enough pheromones into the air yet to make it hard to think. His heatslick is still building, but there’s enough to trickle down the inside of his thigh. She gathers it with a fingertip, slips it up along his skin to rub it back between the slick folds of his vulva.</p><p>“Are you going to come on me?” he asks.</p><p>“Who says I’m going to come at all?”</p><p>Oh fuck, he thinks, she’s a stone alpha. He should’ve known. A delicious sensation skitters along his nerves as she palms the curve of his ass. Dani probably had the best chance of resisting him in full heat and she still wanted him first. His grin stretches wider and a primal sound builds in his chest as the fever of his heat starts to simmer along his skin. The gate rattles as he skids his legs further apart and he tilts his hips higher. Her fingers rub hard against him before curving inside, an easy push of two into his cunt that he clenches around.</p><p>“Do you need a hand on your cock to come, Bright?” she asks, falling into fucking him hard and fast, fingers pushed deep in him and knuckles crushing against sensitive flesh until he’s up on his toes. He’s starting to leak from the tip of his cock already, a long glistening string stretching towards the floor as the first thicker wave of his heatwet steals the friction from the thrust of Dani’s fingers.</p><p>“No,” he moans, head thrown back when she gives him more. The edges of his mind are turning golden and hazy. It’s been so long since he’d gotten fucked during a heat, he’d forgotten how glorious it is.</p><p>His entire body feels relaxed now, loose and warm like laying in the springtime grass in Central Park and letting the sun soak into his bones. He’s open and ready and wet enough that he takes all four of Dani’s fingers easily. If he’d been on his back for her, the pad of her thumb would be digging into the base of his cock, rubbing there with a delicious pressure, but like this, oh, she’s circling the pucker of his ass until he’s easing up there too.</p><p>She stops rubbing his rim and he whimpers, body twisting as he hangs on the metal of the gate. On the thickness of her hand pushing into him. On the steady sound of her breath—as even and strong as her heartbeat where everyone else is now roughly panting.</p><p>But then she’s bracing her free hand on the low of his back as she twists her fingers and strokes him on the inside, finding where it is that a bit of pressure makes his legs buckle and shake. As soon as she does, she fucks him hard, hits the spot again and again until that molten lassitude bleeds out of him and he’s left tense and needy on the edge of something even more beautiful.</p><p>He’s burning, inside and out, each breath tasting like his own heatwet mixed with Dani’s wonderfully rich scent. That smell like the bite of cut grass, impossible to miss. He keens when she slows her pace and tucks her thumb to work that inside him too. He feels so full and so <em>good</em>. Her free hand roams across his fevered skin—traveling along his back, over his flank, spreading his cheeks and swiping briefly over his asshole. He twitches when she thumbs his rim again, circling it again and again like the flicker of a tongue until his legs can’t stop their shaking and he’s seizing up around her hand.</p><p>She curls her fingers inside him, the width of her fist stretching him just like a knot and giving the waves of his orgasm something to ripple around and grasp. He shakes through it all, gulping down lungfuls of air that are so thick with the scents of his alphas—<em>his</em> alphas—that it feels almost as good as if their bodies were pressed around him.</p><p>Dani might have thought that making him come would take the edge off his need and buy them time, and maybe that would be true for a normal omega who craves a mate above everything, but he’s never been normal.</p><p>He drops a hand from the gate, fingers tingling as blood rushes back into them, and gives his cock a slow stroke to shake off the come hanging from the tip. “I’ve dreamed of this so many times,” he says, dazed, and raises his hand to lick the taste of himself off his finger. “Having all of you at once.”</p><p>Dani’s fist twists slightly and he clenches down, not ready to let her go until there’s something else ready to fill him. She returns to stroking his back, and his shirt rucks up as her palm skids over his sweat-damp spine. “How you feeling, Bright?” she asks.</p><p>He rests his cheek against the arm still holding to the gate and sways his hips gently from side to side. “Wonderful,” he purrs.</p><p>“JT, is the fire crew going to be able to get us out of here anytime soon?” Dani asks. “Or the building manager?”</p><p>“I hope not,” Malcolm murmurs, heavy-lidded gaze catching on the obvious arousal straining in JT’s pants. He runs his tongue over his lip until it’s as wet as his cunt is. He can’t smell JT as well as he could before, but it doesn’t matter. He has the man’s scent imprinted in his memory. Craves it just as much.</p><p>Dani tightens her fist and tugs, trying to keep his attention on the pseudo-knot, but it isn’t that it’s not an effective tactic, it’s that he’s too greedy of an omega. The heatstink pouring off him will shortly make that very clear. He <em>likes</em> JT and his sweet beta wife, and Gil? Malcolm shivers. He’s wanted Gil to rut him since his very first heat.</p><p>There’s a strain in JT’s voice as he answers. “Fire says they can’t pop the lid on this place without heavy duty cutting equipment that’ll take longer to get here than—” he pauses to swallow thickly. That menthol must be hardly cutting the smell by now. “Don’t think there’s any way we’re getting out of here in time.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Dani says, and eases her hand free. She picks up her shirt to wipe the heatwet off her fingers.</p><p>Malcolm teeters as he shakes his shorts free from his ankle and rises to his full height. Dani tries to catch him by the arm but he shrugs off the touch, his attention pinned on the two alphas he hasn’t had a taste of yet.</p><p>JT is ready. He smells more than willing. But Gil—standing beside him, equally tall, equally strong—he’s resisting the scent Malcolm’s body is pumping out. That only makes Malcolm want him more. An alpha with control like this promises a lot of things: faithfulness, steadfastness, <em>dominance.</em></p><p>“I lied about preferences,” Malcolm says. The wildfire in his veins moves his body now. Leads him to run both hands appreciatively up the breadth of Gil’s chest. “If I had to pick only one alpha—not just here, but anywhere—I’d want you to breed me, Gil.”</p><p>He claws blunt nails down Gil’s front, what would be a claiming mark of his own if not for the soft knit of Gil’s shirt preventing him from striping skin red. “My mother has always wanted you, so you know that she wouldn’t object on having our lines merge. Her loss that I got here first,” Malcolm says, opening up Gil’s pants.</p><p>Gil moves, lightning quick, hand snapping around Malcolm’s wrist like a vise. “Control yourself, Bright.”</p><p>For a brief second, the command forces its way past the needy haze driving him. But it hits a snag: the immovable wall of Malcolm’s desire too deeply rooted to be overridden.</p><p>Malcolm dips his head down and smiles to himself, his free hand going down to squeeze at his still-thick cock, then reach lower, fingertips slipping easily through the heatwet coating his thighs. “That’s the thing, Gil,” he says, gaze lifting with his slicked-wet fingers. He smears it over the shine of menthol clinging to Gil’s whiskers, over Gil’s lip so he can taste it. “I’m in complete control.”</p><p>He’s not, some part of his brain knows. He’s running on instinct and primal need. </p><p>Gil catches Malcolm’s other arm and the hold on both his wrists tightens. He fights it briefly, enough to know he’s outmatched and feel a surge of arousal at the proof. He expects Gil to continue resisting, that chivalrous condescension of alpha-knows-best seeking to put him in his place. It’s a thrill when Gil hauls him close instead, releasing his wrists to get a hand up under his chin. “Bright,” he growls, pupils blown, teeth bared.</p><p>“Breed me,” Malcolm says, adding a belated “please” as his knee lifts and he rubs himself against Gil’s front. His cock is fully hard again, grinding against the swell of Gil’s, and his cunt feels achingly empty. He rolls his eyes to where JT looms beside them, still able to resist the scent wafting in the air. “Both of you. I’ve done it with toys before. My body can take it.”</p><p>“Belay that,” Gil says, his fingers digging more firmly into Malcolm’s throat, tips pressing near the little bundle of nerves that begs for a bonding bite. “I’m the only alpha who’s going to knot you. You want to get double-rutted? Fine. You want to get shared around? Fine. But JT has a mate to go home to, and that front hole of yours, kid? That belongs to <em>me</em> now.”</p><p>Malcolm shudders, hard, his mind spinning into delirium. He’d always wanted to hear those words and now they’re stamped like a brand into the moment, seared into his memory. He whimpers as Gil releases his hold, leaves him trembling as he watches Gil pull his cock out. He hardly gets a proper look before Gil is picking him up like he’s nothing to drop him right down onto its girth.</p><p>He clings to Gil’s shoulders as Gil’s cock plunges into him. It bottoms out before he’s taken the whole of it, and the near-ache of having such a large alpha rut him steals his breath away. The next bounce earns him another inch, and then another, his body adjusting until he’s welcoming the full length and eager for the next spearing thrust.</p><p>“You feel better than I could have ever imagined,” Malcolm says, rubbing his jaw along Gil’s. His thighs flex against Gil’s hips, working in tandem with the strong hands cupped at his ass. He clenches on a downstroke, wringing a gasp out of Gil that washes past his ear. The whole of his body tingles, his nerves crackling like sparking embers. He nearly laughs, wild with the sensation of its all. He’s approaching his full heat now, inner walls as swollen and tender as the throbbing tip of his cock. The slickness makes it bearable, keeps the friction down even as he finds himself trying to writhe and grind and work himself on Gil’s perfect cock until they both find their release.</p><p>He’s so lost in the feel of having Gil in him and the carnal thrill of having that heavy musk rubbed into his skin that he’s forgotten about JT until there’s a sudden pressure at his back. He jerks, wide-eyed and gasping as Gil lets him sink against the firm muscle of the other alpha’s broad chest and the softness of his belly. Malcolm keens and twists his hands into the knit of Gil’s shirt when the hot nudge of another cock slips and searches between his legs.</p><p>For a moment, he can feel JT’s cockhead nudge against where his cunt is stretched around Gil’s thick shaft. Maybe, he thinks, maybe he could take that too. Both knots in him, stretching that too-sensitive channel that’s driving all his wild cravings. To pump him doubly-full of come until he can’t hold another drop. It might not be enough to breed him—he’s fertile in theory although unplanned heats are volatile on the system—but his body can stretch for it. He’s built for it.</p><p>He is, but Gil isn’t.</p><p>Hard fingers dig into his ass and Malcolm feels Gil’s snarl echo through his own body when Gil reminds JT of his claim—he’s willing to share, but breeding Malcolm is <em>his</em> right. JT stands down immediately and the posturing is so effective that Malcolm hears the soft thud as Dani’s back hits the wall.</p><p>Giddy with the rush of being claimed, Malcolm clings to Gil’s neck as JT returns for another try, this time slicking himself up with the freely dripping heatwet leaking to the floor. Dani had teased Malcolm’s ass into loosening a bit, but it’s still a little too much too fast when JT starts to push into him.</p><p>He leans his head against Gil’s shoulder, mouth open and panting as his body strains to accommodate two big alpha cocks. It’s not like using toys at all, he thinks dimly, as the straining ache gets consumed beneath a hot surge of feral pleasure. He starts to claw at Gil’s top, needing it gone, and Gil delivers the task of holding Malcolm up between them to JT in order to strip off his shirt and fling it away.</p><p>“Better, baby?” Gil asks, capturing Malcolm’s wrists again and quelling the rising red that eats at Malcolm’s vision.</p><p>Malcolm nods and Gil gathers him close again, holds him and allows JT to rut. Each thrust forces Malcolm closer to Gil and he shudders, wondering what it must feel like to them, the slide of their cocks separated by only the soft wall of his insides. He mouths a kiss against Gil’s shoulder, closes a bite around bare flesh and licks the indentations left behind. He can still taste Dani in the air, and from the corner of his eye catches sight of her watching him intently.</p><p>She’s still tucked into the corner, letting the walls hold her up, her jeans down to her knees and her fingers on her swollen clit. Stone alpha or not, maybe someday she’d let him kneel in front of her and wrap his mouth around her clit until she comes squirting on his chest and drenches him in her seed.</p><p>Buttons scatter when JT strips to the waist to match Gil, and then he’s tugging at Malcolm’s dress shirt, not to pull it off him, but to rend it in two. He splits it up the back, fine weave ripping in a smooth line.</p><p>Malcolm moans and clenches around the cocks buried inside him. Being skin-to-skin is so much better. It’s how it’s meant to be. The burning fever bleeds out of him and into them, signalling his need as he soaks up their scent and it mixes with his own. He writhes fitfully between the bulk of the two alphas rutting him, hips grinding onto the steady pressure of Gil’s cock as JT fucks harder still. The ruins of his shirt flutter at his sides and he closes his eyes as a fresh wave of lust wracks his body.</p><p>“It feels so good,” he says, teeth on Gil’s skin again, salt-taste of sweat spreading on his tongue. His nails claw into the muscles of Gil’s back and he squeezes as tight as he can, clinging to his alpha with every fiber of his being. He shudders when he feels an answering swell to the grip of his inner muscles and he rubs his jaw against the sweep of Gil’s collarbone. “I can’t wait for you to come. All of you.”</p><p>JT is swelling too, knot building and starting to tug at his rim, stroking him inside—stroking Gil, too—and Malcolm moans louder still as thick fingers touch to feel where he’s stretched thin and trembling.</p><p>“No, no don’t. Don’t fucking stop, please, no,” he begs—<em>demands</em>—when he realizes that JT is pulling out, but then JT’s hand grips the back of his neck and he submits to JT’s will as the first hot splash of come stripes the low of his back.</p><p>He tightens around Gil’s cock as JT unloads and leaves him soaked in come. Malcolm squirms against the grip on his neck, shuddering when JT’s thumb strokes over the bundled nerves there. He scents JT’s come on the air, wishes he could taste it properly, feel it inside his mouth if not his body. He wants it <em>inside</em> him somehow, not just dripping down his back and over his ass.</p><p>“He’s all yours, boss,” JT says, slightly breathless and with a tinge of fond amusement. He gives Malcolm’s neck a little shake—the touch so different than Gil’s, Malcolm notes—before he backs away, sated.</p><p>“Are you, Malcolm?” Gil asks. He juggles Malcolm’s weight into one hand and wipes up handfuls of the come sliding down Malcolm’s fevered skin with the other. He flicks it away to the floor and dries his hand off on the tattered ends of Malcolm’s shirt before tugging at that to get it off him. This time Malcolm obliges, helping shed it from his shoulders. “Are you mine?”</p><p>“I always have been,” Malcolm answers honestly. He’d known it that very first day. After the sirens had left and the house was too-quiet and he'd started to feel strange… When later, after his mother had tucked Ainsley in her bed at the hotel and ushered him into the bathroom to get him a sanitary pad from her purse. She’d told him not to worry, that it was just a little early, but stress can do that to a boy and the house had been “positively full of virile alphas stomping around.” He hadn’t worried. He’d fallen asleep too-warm with a candy wrapper in his fist and gone on emergency suppressants the next morning, but from that moment on he’d never really wanted anyone else as a mate.</p><p>He just didn’t think it’d ever be reciprocated. Even on a purely physical level.</p><p>Gil turns, moves to back Malcolm into the corner of the elevator car and let the join of the walls hold most of his weight. The breadth of his back blocks Malcolm from the other alphas in the room, and yet signals at the same time that he trusts them. Has Gil always been so possessive? Has every touch against his neck over the years not been meant to soothe or settle him but act as a subtle, silent claim?</p><p>Over Gil’s shoulder, Malcolm sees JT on his phone again—texting his wife, maybe, or the emergency crew and Dani’s just come herself, the insides of her legs drenched as wet as he is. Her cheeks are flushed a dewy pink and she shares a fleeting smile with him before she starts to wipe herself clean with her shirt.</p><p>Malcolm knows he’s theirs too, a bond growing over these past months through respect and desire and admiration. But with Gil it’s different, deeper than the pack pheromones that have built up over the satisfaction of many a job well done. He burrows his nose in Gil’s neck and inhales the scent of him and only him.</p><p>“I’ve always been yours,” Malcolm repeats, his arms around Gil’s neck clinging tighter and his ankles hooking together as the words drive Gil to fuck him harder. He closes his eyes, narrowing down his world even further to the press of Gil’s body against him and the thrust of his cock. His own cock throbs and twitches between them, precome leaking wet against their bellies. Now that Gil can really <em>move</em>, it makes it difficult for Malcolm to keep stringing his thoughts together. Each slamming thrust drives a small sound out of him and his temperature up.</p><p>His skin burns gloriously, still more heatwet dripping out of him until each plunge of Gil’s cock is a wet, nasty squelch. It feels too good, like his entire body is focused on pleasure. On <em>Gil’s</em> pleasure. Malcolm squeezes as tight as he can, tries to turn the slick slide into something with a bit of friction. There’s a twitch and a swell and he feels a snarl build in his throat. An answering sound rumbles through Gil.</p><p>Gil bottoms out in him, holds there for a moment with his breath coming rough and fast, and Malcolm knows he’s close. They both are. He licks at the column of Gil’s throat. “Please. Please, Gil,” he says, the only words that he still knows and puts his teeth to Gil’s neck, biting hard as if he had any hope to trigger a bond.</p><p>Gil’s head tips back, a hissing breath sucked in between his teeth. His throat exposed like this isn’t the same submissive gesture as when Malcolm does it—far from it—this is a challenge. But Malcolm can’t do it, can’t force him to bond or to submit. It’s a biological impossibility.</p><p>What Malcolm can do though, is lick the mark he’s sucked into Gil’s skin and beg for one to match. Even if Gil doesn’t want to bond him—distantly, he knows it’s unlikely, two bonds in a lifetime for an alpha is ten times as rare as his biotype—if only he’d mark him up and leave him kiss-bruised long after the scent of the mating has faded. Leave him with something to touch and admire if the heat fades and he’s left, as he’s always been, without a life growing in his belly.</p><p>“P-please,” he rasps, nuzzling against Gil as he begins to move again with slow, deep strokes that let Malcolm feel every inch tucked up inside him.</p><p>“Kid— Malcolm, you’re—”</p><p>“Yours. Please…”</p><p>The hand braced under Malcolm’s thigh clutches bruisingly hard, and Gil’s face turns, his mouth open and lips shivering against the pulse beating frantically in Malcolm’s jugular.</p><p>Malcolm’s legs pull Gil in tighter to him, as if in the fire that consumes him they might melt together. Later, he might wonder how Gil planned to end that sentence. What sort of excuses Gil hoped to make: <em>you’re not in your right mind; you’re going to regret it if we do this; you’re too young to want a mate my age.</em> He can’t think of any of that now, not with his name on Gil’s lips and the gentle tickle of whiskers making him squirm with delight.</p><p>Gil noses his chin higher, until his neck his taut and straining, the bonding cluster pulled tight beneath its layer of protective muscle, ready for the dig of alpha canines to find and pierce it. To flood him with that chemical rush he’s only read about in romance novels. Malcolm quivers as Gil’s mouth ranges along his neck, teeth and tongue scraping, the sensation so distracting that if not for the hard gust of air punched out of Gil he might’ve missed that first throbbing pulse of come flooding into him. He’d certainly missed the swelling, but now it’s all he can feel.</p><p>He gasps as Gil’s hips jerk against him, their bodies tucked so tight together there’s no more depth to be found. He’s never had an alpha come first like this—JT taking him in the back didn’t count—and he thrashes, clenching desperately as gravity threatens to pull each wave of come out of him. Gil’s knot isn’t fully engorged. He could slip out, just like JT. He could leave Malcolm burning and alone.</p><p>Red eats at Malcolm’s vision again. He <em>wants</em> this more than anything he’s ever wanted. He <em>needs</em> this. His eyes flash open and he digs welts into Gil’s back and shoulders as he brings his hands to frame Gil’s face and force his alpha to look at him. To watch as he works himself to orgasm with the fitful grinding of his hips and seizes down on Gil’s knot to trigger it to swell larger yet and plug him tight.</p><p>“Bite me,” Malcolm says, his cock still twitching between them, his own come still pulsing out of him. “Bite me and make this forever.”</p><p>But there’s clarity in Gil’s warm eyes again, and this time when he catches Malcolm’s wrists to pull them away from his face, his grip is just enough to overpower and nothing more. “No, Malcolm,” he says, and cradles him close as he sinks down and brings them to the floor.</p><p>“Why?” Malcolm blurts out, knees sprawling wide as Gil carefully eases down to sitting. There’s still a bit of heatrage burning in him, frustration warring with the blissfulness of being clenched up tight around Gil’s knot. His hands hook to Gil’s shoulders and he searches for an answer to be found in the lines around Gil’s eyes and mouth.</p><p>“Because I said so, you impertinent pup,” Gil tells him, delivering a gentle verbal smack that rarely ever works on Malcolm.</p><p>Malcolm hitches his hips forward, pulling at Gil’s knot and wringing another weaker pulse of come. “Because you said so…” he mutters under his breath, but as his own faculties are slow to return he knows he’s not going to win an argument like this, not now. </p><p>“Trust me, kid,” Gil says, and strokes his hands down Malcolm’s back. His hold settles low on Malcolm’s waist, the touch nearly warmed to the same temperature as Malcolm’s skin. “You do trust me, don’t you?”</p><p>Restless with a different sort of energy, Malcolm rolls his eyes. “Of course I trust you.”</p><p>“Good boy,” Gil says, and reaches to snag the hem of his coat and draw it to them. He shakes it out and drapes it around Malcolm’s shoulders, the heavy wool curtaining around their joined bodies.</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“No buts!” Gil growls with no real threat behind the sound. His gaze drops to Malcolm’s mouth and then he’s nudging his lips against Malcolm’s and opening him to a kiss.</p><p>There’s still a hint of menthol there, and the salty taste of his own heatslick. A current goes through Malcolm at the dip of Gil’s tongue into his mouth, and his softened cock twitches. It makes him immediately want more and he moans as he delivers an eager lick against Gil’s questing tongue. Malcolm lets all his energy pour into the way their mouths fit together, his hips lightly rocking and his hands slipping up to brace against the column of Gil’s neck. Gil makes low sounds of encouragement, breaks away every so often to praise him and tell him how good Malcolm feels around his knot.</p><p>It isn’t long before Malcolm’s hard again, the heat no longer a raging fire burning him alive but a radiating glow. He slips a hand down between them to fist his cock, sucking on Gil’s tongue and nipping at his lips, challenging him to take over but he never does. He lets Malcolm ride out his next orgasm at his own pace, and it isn’t until a wash of cool air swirls in and brings in the scent of others that Malcolm realizes the shaking wasn’t simply his own release, but that the elevator had moved up to the next floor.</p><p>“Give us another hour,” Gil says, his knot still thick and throbbing as he brushes his fingers through Malcolm’s hair.</p><p>Dazed and blissed-out Malcolm slumps against him, landing soft, lazy kisses on whatever skin he can.</p><p>After JT and Dani are escorted out to be checked and cleared by beta EMTs, and the flurry of activity fades, Gil noses at Malcolm to get his attention. “Hey, kid,” he says, and Malcolm blinks open his eyes.</p><p>“Mmmn?”</p><p>“How are you feeling?”</p><p>“Wonderful,” Malcolm says. The scent of their bodies mixing together is so warm and perfect, the weight of Gil’s coat across his shoulders reminiscent of a proper nest. “I love you. I love this.”</p><p>Gil’s hand finds his face, broad palm cupping his cheek and fingertips flirting at the hinge of his jaw. Malcolm rubs his face into the touch and hums in contentment. “I want you to know something, Malcolm,” Gil says, pressing a soft kiss to Malcolm’s temple. “Bonding in the middle of a heat is a mistake I didn’t want to make again.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Malcolm’s brow furrows. Gil can’t mean to imply he’d regretted his bond with Jackie, they’d loved each other too deeply for that. It’s what made his own desire to have Gil as his alpha so easy to ignore for so long.</p><p>“The bond wasn’t a mistake,” Gil says, his words and lips soft as a paintbrush near Malcolm's ear. “Just the bonding.”</p><p>“I don’t—”</p><p>“You’ll see,” Gil tells him, then bites.</p><p>Malcolm’s entire body goes haywire when Gil’s teeth clamp down on his neck. His hands slap to Gil’s chest, fingers spreading wide as his limbs jerk feebly. Lightning rockets through his nerves, blazing white, hotter than any heat could hope to be.</p><p>He shivers uncontrollably as Gil’s teeth dig harder and harder, close to breaking skin as his arms curl tight around Malcolm to hold him through it. Impossible pleasure surges through Malcolm, chasing the last of the fire out of his veins and drowning it all in liquid, golden rapture.</p><p>His throat is raw, his own cry ringing in his ears when that syrupy euphoria, too, fades. He can feel Gil’s tongue soothing the bite, a soft, almost apologetic kiss left on tender skin as something wet slips down his cheeks. He seeks out Gil’s mouth, making a soft mewling sound as Gil kisses him again. </p><p>Already his scent is changing, body preparing to signal to the world who he belongs to.</p><p>Gil’s softly panting, the chemical change triggered in him far less intense. “Better to feel that when you’re not keyed up and wild,” he murmurs between kisses, unable to stop from smiling as the tension melts out of him and he braces his back against the wall of the elevator car.</p><p>“You could’ve told me,” Malcolm says.</p><p>Gil lifts a brow. “Would you have listened?”</p><p>Malcolm rolls his eyes and snuggles close again, curling up as best he can against Gil’s chest as they remain tied together. Already he wants to be surrounded by any and all things that belong to his mate. “So, who's moving in with whom?”</p><p>“This isn’t the fifties, kid, bonded couples don’t need to live together.”</p><p>“But if we did...” Malcolm traces small circles on the smooth skin of Gil’s chest as he pictures his bed made with Gil’s linens. “Imagine how much sex we could have. The benefits of chronic insomnia is I have a lot of waking hours to fill. Plus, my loft does technically have more space, and now that you don’t need to worry about parking, it would reduce your commute significantly.”</p><p>“I knew this was a bad idea,” Gil says, breathing a laugh into Malcolm’s hair. “Let’s talk about this later, okay? We’ve still got an active homicide to solve, and you’re going to have to sequester yourself for twenty-four hours. Rules are rules.”</p><p>“Fine,” Malcolm says. He wriggles. Another twenty minutes and they can separate, although he certainly doesn’t <em>want</em> to. “I suppose I could use the isolation time to figure out what to tell mother.”</p><p>“There is that,” Gil mutters.</p><p>“If I conceive though, we’ll definitely need to move in together,” Malcolm points out. “And you know that she’ll insist on a wedding.”</p><p>“Marriage, babies… Kid, just let me enjoy the glow,” Gil says, still amused.</p><p>Malcolm makes a startled sound when Gil twists, the coat sliding away as Gil’s powerful arms bear him down to the floor. It’s shockingly cold beneath his back, but his eyes go half-lidded in pleasure as Gil curls his body protectively over Malcolm and drops another kiss over the tender mark of the bite</p><p>He breathes in the scent of his mate, marvelling at how different his world has become in the span of a few hours. Beloved, bonded… It would have been incomprehensible to think when he’d unclipped himself from bed this morning. Even the nervous tension that sits perpetually in the pit of his stomach is dulled beneath the endorphins. Maybe Gil’s right and he ought to learn to relax and enjoy this for a bit, too.</p><p>Smothered under the weight of his alpha, Malcolm smiles and circles his arms around Gil to do just that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Read more of my <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;commit=Sort+and+Filter&amp;work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Prodigal+Son+%28TV+2019%29&amp;user_id=ponderosa121">Prodigal Son fics</a>, or talk to me about this twink getting wrecked on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/ponderosa121">@ponderosa121</a> or on Discord in <a href="https://discord.gg/fQaRgBD">Prodigal Son Trash</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>